Because of the advocacy of the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre, the Thunder Bay committee to end woman abuse and the Naadmaagewin Indigenous Domestic Violence Committee, on September 25 Thunder Bay’s city council declared gender-based intimate partner violence an epidemic.

The rates of gender-based violence and sexual assault in northwestern Ontario are amongst the highest in the province, but in small, northern communities, vast distances and sparse populations make it extremely difficult for women to access support. It’s not possible to escape if there are no shelters where you live. And when funding is based on population numbers and not the geographic realities of the north, it’s guaranteed women will have nowhere safe to go.

The court system is also failing survivors. Because of court backlogs, plea bargains are pushed, women are silenced and perpetrators are released. Femicide, the killing of children: These still shock, yet they are only the extreme end of the everyday coercive control that keeps people living with abuse.

We need the Conservative government to listen to survivors, provide sustainable funding, fix the court system and act on all the recommendations of the Renfrew inquest, beginning with the first recommendation: Declare gender-based violence as the epidemic it is.

Meegwetch. Marsi. Merci. Thank you.